ference "to the barbarous and horrible at- | inadmissible to the Legislature because tempt to have blown up with gunpowder, Parliament is convened to deliberate not the King, Queen, Prince, Lords and Com- only on matters of State, but especially mons in this House of Parliament assem- "de quibusdam rebus Ecclesiam Anglicabled." This oath continued in force until nam concernentibus.” What is the antho Revolution of 1688. Now, if the swer of the Jew to this objection? "Am words "on the true faith of a Christian I less qualified than the Quaker to legishad been considered important as guaran- late on questions of public policy, or on teeing the Christian character of the Legis- matters concerning the Church? I have lature, is it not remarkable that in the first no scruples as to the lawfulness of war. I year of the reign of William and Mary do not deny the right to tithes: I do not they should have been altogether dispensed refuse their payment, except on compulwith? The oath which contained them, sion. I have no rival religious establishand with the oath the words themselves, ment, as the Roman Catholic has. You were by express enactment "repealed, make no objection to the Unitarian, who utterly abrogated, and made void;" and rejects one of the fundamental doctrines for that oath this simple form was substi- of the Christian faith, and yet you plead tuted :-"I do sincerely promise and the Christian character of the Legisswear that I will be faithful and bear lature as the impediment to my admistrue allegiance to Her Majesty. So help sion." me God. From the year 1688 to the year 1701, the simple oath of allegiance was the only one required. There was no profession of the "true faith of a Christian" by Members of either House of Parliament. In 1701, the Pretender assumed the title of James III. That title was acknowledged by Louis XIV., and it was thought necessary, for the protection of the new dynasty, to impose an oath of abjuration. The form of the oath imposed by James I., which included the words "on the true faith of a Christian," was adopted, and has ter. Still, it is contended that we have at least this satisfaction, that no Member can be admitted to sit in the House of Commons without professing his belief in Christianity; that a declaration" on the true faith of a Christian" is an indispensable condition of his admission. But this is not true. I hold in my hand the declaration made by a Quaker at the table of this House, and from that declaration the words "on the true faith of a Christian" are omitted. You will constitute no new precedent, therefore, by omitting these words in the case of the Jew. Require from the Jew the same identical declaration which you require from the Quaker, and permit the Jew to swear in the very same form in which you permit him, nay, compel him to swear in a court of law, and he will be perfectly satisfied. there be a stronger proof that you did not consider the words "on the true faith of a Christian" an essential qualification for the Legislature, than that in framing a declaration to be made by the Quaker, on his admission to this House, you deliberately omitted them. You have done the same in the case of the Moravian and the Separatist. There is, therefore, an end of the argument, that the omission of the same words in favour of the Jew would be an act without an example, derogatory to the Christian character of Parliament. Can since remained in force. But it was neither originally imposed, nor subsequently revived, for the purpose of assuring the Christian character of the Legislature. You now plead against the admission of the Jew the policy of maintaining that Christian characYou argue," We have ceased, it is true, to be a Church of England Parliament, we have have ceased to be a Protestant Parliament, but we have tests in force which ensure our unity as a Christian Parliament." May not the Jew reply, that those tests were never designed for that purpose; that they were not directed against him; that they were directed, for purely political purposes, by one body of Christians against another, whose loyalty and fidelity were denied. These tests that are now to be retained as the guarantees for Christian unity, are the historical evidences of former divisions and fierce conflicts be-vered by me in the year 1830, with an extween Christians themselves. The Member for Midhurst quotes the writ of summons for the convocation of Parliament, and contends that the Jew is The hon. Member for Dorsetshire has referred to a speech on this subject deli pression of surprise that I can now content to the removal of Jewish disabilities. Since the year 1830, circumstances have occurred having an important bearing on the Church to all executive and municipal offices without requiring that declaration of Christian faith. The words were inserted in the House of Lords, and, rather than lose the Bill, the Amendment was acceded to by the Commons. A marked distinction was made in the Act of 1828 as to the period when the declaration was required; in the case of exccutive office, a certain time (six months after admission to office) was given; in the case of municipal this question, and making in the position of it a material change. You have in the interval admitted to the Legislature classes of religionists, who in the year 1830 were excluded in common with the Jew; you have admitted the Quakers, the Moravians, and the Separatists. In respect to office-to civil, political, and municipal office, the present position of the Jew is entirely different from his position in 1830; and even now, and after the progress made in this debate, I doubt whether that posi-office, the declaration was required to be tion is clearly understood. It is well known that the Jews have been selected by the Crown for civil distinctions; that under the late Government the Baronetcy was conferred by the Queen upon Sir Moses Montefiore; under the present upon Mr. Rothschild. It is also well known that the Jews are, by a recent Act of Parliament (passed in 1845), qualified for all municipal offices. But it is not generally known that all civil and military appointments, with very few exceptions, are tenable by a Jew. I believe that at this moment the Jew is eligible to any executive office to which the Crown may appoint him, no matter how important may be the duties attached to that office, unless in the case of offices which must be held by Privy Councillors, he be precluded by the oath which is administered to a Privy Councillor. I apprehend that there is nothing which can prevent a Jew from being Secretary of State to-morrow, except through the indirect operation of the oath required of a Privy Councillor, and that there is nothing in the substance or terms of that oath to which a Jew would object. If you will permit the Jew to take the Privy Councillor's oath on the Old Testament, the oath of the Privy Councillor will not exclude him from the Privy Council. It is my conviction, therefore, that except through the indirect operation of that oath, there is not an office within the gift of the Crown from which a Jew, practically, is excluded. Let me shortly revert to the Act of 1828. A certain declaration, containing the words "on the true faith of a Christian," was by that Act substituted for the decararation against transubstantiation; and, observe, these words, on the true faith of a Christian," were not inserted in the declaration required by the Bill, as it was sent up to the Lords by the House of Commons. The Bill, when it left the Lower House, did not contain these words; the Commons were content to admit dissenters from made previously to or upon admission to office. In the year 1831, a material change took place in the enactments of the Annual Indemnity Act. The declaration required by the Act of 1828 was then placed on the same footing as all other tests. The consequence is, that during the whole of the last two reigns-the reign of King William and the reign of Queen Victoria-all parties appointed to executive office have been given, under the Annual Indemnity Act, the whole year to qualify. Before the year expires another Indemnity Act passes; and the fact therefore is, that at this moment, except through the indirect operation of the Privy Councillor's oath, there is not an office under the Crown which a Jew may not hold, and be protected in holding. Having acceded to those important changes in the position of the Jew, and having admitted all other Dissenters to legislative functions, can we permanently maintain the exclusion of the Jew from Parliament? He is possessed of the elective franchise. He is eligible to and has entered upon municipal office. He may be Lord Mayor of London. He is shut out from no office under the Crown excepting that of Privy Councillor. The Crown has been enabled for the last seventeen years to appoint the Jew to high political office; but there is a certain trust which can only be exercised through the good will of electors, the great majority of whom must probably be professing Christians, and yet from that trust the Jew is to remain excluded. There is no jealousy of the Crown in respect to the appointment of Jews to the most important civil offices, but such jealousy of the Christian electors of this country, that you will not permit them to send the man of their choice to this House, if he happen to be a Jew. Sir, my opinion is, that you cannot permanently maintain that exclusion, and if you cannot, why not remove it now? You have removed other disabilities with little danger to the interests of the Church, or to the interests of the Christian religion. My firm belief is-and I rejoice in the conviction that the Church of England is stronger at this moment than at any period of her history. The disposition of the Church to admit timely and salutary reforms has been one great cause of that strength. A still more efficient cause is the deep religious feeling which has been awakened through the country. The strength of the Church and of religion is not now dependent on the question of two or three votes, more or less, in this House. The Church is strong enough to be independent on all essential points of the decisions of this House. It is rooted in the affections of the people, and it is a disparagement to religion and to the Church to contend that the safety of either depends upon the continued exclusion from this assembly of the Baron de Rothschild, or three or four gentlemen of the Jewish faith. Were it not for internal dissensions within the Church itself, the Church would be stronger at this moment, after the successive relaxation of disabling laws, than it was, even at the period when you required conformity to the faith of the Church as an essential qualification for Parliament. ment to the complete admission of the Jew to the right of a British subject. If there be a class of our fellow-beings to whom reparation is due from every Christian State in Europe-reparation for centuries of calumny, persecution, and wrong-the Jews are that class. I defy you to read the early history of this country, narrated, not by indignant Jews, but by the popular historians of your own faith, without shuddering at the atrocities committed by Christian sovereigns and a Christian people. Hume says, "Our ideas scarcely come up to the extortions which we find to have been practised upon the Jews.' Speaking of King Henry III., and detailing his unjust demands for money, and his threats to hang the Jews if they refused compliance, he says, "The King then delivered over the Jews to the Earl of Cornwall, that those whom one brother had flayed, the other might embowel." He remarks that "the acts of violence against the Jews proceeded much from bigotry, but more from avidity and rapine.” Even in that age these things would not have been done or tolerated, but for deeprooted prejudices and wide-spread antipathy to the Jews, on account of their religious faith. Are we quite sure that the same prejudices-the same antipathy-do not still exist? We disclaim them within I cannot then assign danger to the these walls; but are they not the real Church as a reason for excluding the Jew. cause of much of the opposition to the reAt the same time I deeply regret that the lief of the Jew from civil disabilities? Of feelings of zealous and pious Christians this I am confident, that within the preshould be wounded by the omission from sent century both the people and the Goan oath of the words "on the true faith vernment of this country have been influof a Christian." Believing, however, the enced by such unworthy feelings. It was impression with regard both to the original the deference to irrational prejudice that intent and the effect of those words to be induced the Ministry in 1753 to propose erroneous; seeing that it is an error to the repeal of the Act for the naturalisation suppose they have formed a part of the of foreign Jews, passed in the preceding qualification for Parliament for an uninter- year. The most disgraceful day in the rupted period since their first introduction, annals of the British Parliament was that in the reign of James I., inasmuch as they on which the Duke of Newcastle, the First were utterly abrogated, repealed, and Minister of the Crown, proposed the repeal done away" at the time of the Revolution, of that Act. A general election was imand were only revived thirteen years after- pending-great excitement prevailed-exwards for a purely political purpose-citement of such a nature, that the Memseeing that it is an error to suppose that they are now required for every Member of the Legislature, inasmuch as they are waived in the case of the Quaker, the Moravian, and the Separatist-I cannot think it just to continue the exclusion of the Jew from deference to conscientious but erroneous impressions. 66 I own, Sir, that I do cordially rejoice that I can find no constitutional impedi ber for Exeter, who had voted in favour of the Jews, was denounced as a Jew, and was compelled to appease his constituents by citing, in proof of his Christianity, the fact that he had repeatedly travelled on a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hardwicke), in his place in the House of Lords, condescended to vindicate the Government for proposing the repeal of the Naturalisation Act by such arguments as these. Speak- perpetual danger of everywhere suffering, we ing of the Jews, and the popular feel- can hardly persuade ourselves that any remnant ings towards them, Lord Hardwicke ob- of the nation so bitterly persecuted can now be surviving." served "By our laws they may be protected from any open violence or direct assault; but whilst the people are so highly and so generally exasperated against them as they everywhere appear to be at present, they will be exposed to daily insults and vexations which no law can provide against or punish, especially in this country, where no man, not even the King himself, is vested with absolute power, and where every magistrate is obliged to confine himself within the letter of the law. Therefore, whilst the people continue in their present humour, it will be impossible for any Jew, rich or poor, to live here with the same ease and security which he did before that law was passed." Again: They have survived, having borne their wrongs with exemplary patience and resignation. Suppose the result of these bitter persecutions had been to make the Jews & degraded race-suppose "the iron had entered into their souls ;" suppose they had been so bowed down, as to have become "Curvæ in terris animæ ac cœlestium inanes"who would be responsible for their degradation? If the Jews were debased or inferior in moral worth to Christians, could that debasement and inferiority-the natural re"I am convinced that the ill-humour of the sult of oppression-be now assigned with people would before now have broken out, if it any semblance of justice, as an impedihad not been for the hope that, as soon as Parliament to the grant of equal rights to the ment met, the law would be repealed; and if they were to see two or three dozens of their country. Jews? Could the Christian rulers of men hanged every session for mobbing or mur- Europe justly reproach the Jews for dering the Jews, I believe it would not contribute continuing a separate people, and for towards restoring them to good humour, especi- being deficient in ardent patriotism and ally as many of them would find, at least imagine, that the Jews interfered with them in their trade devoted attachment to the institutions or business." under which such wrongs had been inflicted? Could they be astonished, if, vexed by repeated persecutions, the Jews permitted the past, the distant, and the future, to predominate over the present?-if, sitting down by the waters of strange lands, they wept, when they remembered For such reasons as these, in avowed obedience to the most irrational and vulgar prejudices, a slight privilege conceded to the Jews in 1752 was suddenly withdrawn in 1753, by the same Ministers and the same Parliament by which it had been granted. I have cited the authority of Hume for the cruelties practised in England upon the Jews during the reigns of King John and his successor. Let me read an extract from another historian, Sharon Turner, containing a brief summary of the persecutions to which this unhappy people were subject in this country and other parts of Europe : "When we recollect their massacre along the Rhine in 1096, and in England in the time of Richard I., and read of their repeated destructions in Germany; in 1221 at Erfurt; in 1263 at Fulda, when on an accusation of their killing Christian boys for their blood, the Emperor ordered an inquiry whether Christian blood was a necessary part of their Passover, to which the official answer was, that nothing certain was known on the subject. In 1240 at Frankfort, with fire and sword;' in 1282 at Mentz and other places; in 1298 at Nuremburgh and through all Franconia Sion? But, according to your own acknowledgment, the Jews have not been debased. In point of courage, of moral worth, of intellectual power, of mental acquirements, they yield precedence to none. They have times of severe trial, at home or abroad, been faithful subjects of the Crown in the their loyalty has never wavered. On what ground, then, do you justify their exclusion from any privilege of a Protestant subject? Are they not so far entitled to our confidence, that they may be qualified for a trust, which they cannot exercise except through the good will of Christian constituencies ? It may be that considerations of the past-that the desire to make reparation for former wrongs-ought not to control or influence our judgment; but they may so far operate as to inculcate the duty of mature reflection, whether we cannot reconcile our feelings with our duty, and to increase our satisfaction, if we find that they are not incompatible. that they were also exterminated from Bavaria; I have other motives that weigh with are still subject to persecution and cruel | lature should manifest that indifference oppression. Twice within the last three towards divine truth which might be imor four years has a British subject, dis- plied by the admission of the Jew to the tinguished for his benevolence and philan- Legislature, and by thus relinquishing the thropy, Sir Moses Montefiore, repaired to distinguishing character of a Christian distant lands, in the hope of mitigating Parliament. I concur with my right hon. the hard lot of the suffering Jews. He Friend, that vast dominion imposes upon repaired to St. Petersburg for the purpose us the gravest responsibility. That doof imploring mercy towards the Jews in minion may be destined by Providence to Poland. He repaired to the East for the advance much higher purposes than, the purpose of relieving, if possible, the Jews aggrandisement of empire, or the extenin Palestine, from shameful wrongs, per- sion of commerce. Empire and commerce petrated on the pretext that they murdered may be the means towards a great end; Christian children in order that their blood they may be the avenues through which might be available for the Passover. the light of knowledge is to penetrate the cloud of error, through which "the dayspring from on high is to visit those that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death." I agree with him, that if by assenting to this measure, indifference towards divine truth could be justly imputed to us-if the suspicion of it should relax the zeal or defeat the exertions of devout and pious men labouring in the cause of true religion, such a result would be a lamentable one, with evil consequences far outweighing any which could arise from the continued disabilities of the Jews. He carried with him letters of recommendation from British Ministers, certifying his high character for integrity and honour, and the purity of the motives by which he was actuated. How much more persuasive would those letters have been if they could have announced the fact, that every ancient prejudice against the Jews had been extinguished here, and that the Jew was on a perfect equality, as to civil rights, with his Christian fellow-citizen. Place him on that footing of perfect equality, and the influence of your benevolent legislation will extend far beyond the narrow limits of your own country. You will exercise an authority and jurisdiction, even in foreign countries, which laws, however jealous of external interference, cannot exclude the moral authority of a just and benevolent example. You will offer consolation to many a wounded spirit, and weaken the force of the prejudices and antipathies which harden the heart against the impulses of humanity; at any rate you will make it impossible to justify those prejudices by the example of England. It remains for me only to refer to the argument against the removal of Jewish disabilities which was chiefly relied on by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Goulburn), and urged by him with great force and My right hon. Friend contends that even if the zeal of the pious missionary should not be damped by our misconduct -if he should still continue to enforce the truths of Christianity, yet if it came to the knowledge of those to whom these truths were addressed, that at home the distinctions between Christians and Jews had been abolished, by admitting the Jews to legislative functions, the millions of heathens whom Providence has placed under our rule would be shocked by our inconsistency, and would be unwilling to assent to doctrines which we ourselves appeared to repudiate. I cannot concur in the apprehensions of my right hon. Friend. Let me take the natives of some distant country, utterly ignorant of the truths of the Gospel, but not insensible to the force of reason. If you could tell them that your policy towards the Jew was that of the reign of Richard I. or of the Spanish Inquisition-that you so abominated the crime which his ancestors had committed, and so detested his unbelief, that you would hold no communion with him-that by your laws he was subject to banishment and torture, the heathen might think you deficient in charity, but give you credit for your devotion to the true faith. But if you told the |